


The Devil's inside

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: "tru fans" need not apply, 11x10, Any typos please report to me, Caution you may find this depressing, Destiel - Freeform, My work - Freeform, No killing me please, coda as I believe the kids are saying, expendable castiel, if you need cheering up then this isn't the place for you, just cas being a selfless dude, maybe he isn't dead (yet) but I don't see much hope, okay you can kill me if you really want to, sorta death? You'll have to figure that out yourself, the Devils in the details, this writing style isn't my favorite so beware, well I say dude but he's agender so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-22
Updated: 2016-01-22
Packaged: 2018-05-15 13:14:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5786500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account





	The Devil's inside

_Any last words?_

In the second that follows, a thousand lifetimes seem to flicker and fade before my eyes. While my hands clutch at the bars behind me, your face blurs across my vision. It's strange how your eyes are fixed into my mind, and the way your lashes draw down over them. I can see every hair on your head, every light freckle which breaks the broken contours of your face; it's a map I don't need to read to understand. You're there. There inside my head, in every perfect way, mood, and state. I see you whole and empty, fixed and broken, wise and yet so blissfully unaware. Perhaps, if there's a million perfect yous inside my mind I won't need the real you. If death really came, finally, to take me for one last time, I'd fade into nothing with you etched onto the surface of every atom of my being.

Perhaps, it would be bearable to watch you live without me. I know it would. You would live, really live; you'd live to grow old and happy and you'd be something, maybe even someone. You could learn to live in peace. It would take time to sooth the raw wounds, it would take years to realise you have a purpose without a war, a life with no fight to fight. But you would heal, in time.

That would be enough for me.

I don't catch your eye across the endless space between us. I don't risk you seeing the fear in my eyes, the desperate longing that I conceal in every glance your way. Would you notice? Would you notice my pain? Me, the insignificant one you never learnt to love? The care you gave me faded with the years. Even when I saw your soul burning brightly and felt your sharp love I knew there was no space for me there. You burn so brightly, my friend. You love, you hate, you conceal your wildly beating heart under the rash anger of your fear.

And I, who have seen a million worlds begin and end, have never seen anything so beautiful.

And if every brush of your hand across my shoulders sparks a fresh warmth, what of it?

_"Will it work?"_

My heart thuds louder than I have ever heard it do so. Does it know its beats are numbered, condemned, and it tries to fill these moments with a lifetimes worth of power? You'd know, you, who have felt life and death and things worse than both and yet lived to tell the story. Was I wrong to give you these new lives? Could the world be a better place without you on it? No, a thousand times, no. And I'd do it again, over and over.

My selfish heart thuds on.

_Yes._

It's nearly time. I'd stay, you know, to see your eyes light up again, but I cannot bear to watch you turn away from me. My chest throbs with the threat and your dismissal; a dull, aching blow. I know it's time to go. I watch your blank carelessness and it's not a surprise. I remember a time when you'd have been by my side, and yet I'm becoming accustomed to you not caring. I can't stay to watch you forget about me, though. That would hurt too much, and I've felt pain enough to last millennia.

Pain flows, you know, like a river returning to its source, and mine flows back to you.

And if it will hurt you, to know I'm leaving you one final time, then take my heart and keep it close to your own, and I'll call to you through the span of time; I'll sooth your hurt. I'll watch over you while you grieve, while you search and fight on, grind on until you are nothing but a leaf twisting in a hurricane. If I thought you'll care, I'd stay, my friend.

And if I willingly waltz with heavy heart towards my inevitable death, what of it? Infinity is a long time to live and yet be expendable.

Before I leave, I need you to understand that I'd do it again, all of it, for you. I go gladly towards that dying light for you, Dean Winchester.

_"Then, yes."_

You're etched across every atom of my being as I close my eyes.


End file.
